Hi everyone!

As we prepare for back to school I know that many of you will be starting remote with your child.  We are all concerned about too much screen time and so I've pulled together some of our favorite hands on learning activities to share with all of you! These are all tested and approved by Crayon Kid and use materials you have in your home.  I like simply seeing what I have on hand and making activities out of it. I'm a no fuss kind of person. 

If you have playdough, rocks (maybe from a nature walk), chopsticks (from Chinese food take out), egg cartons, any kind of foam or magnetic letters, you will be set!  I bought our magnetic letters from Amazon.  No I am not an affiliate, just an Amazon addict! 

Play dough Fun with Letters and Chopsticks!

We used our egg cartons, play dough, letters, and chopsticks with these two activities.  I colored inside each section of the egg carton with a different color, and then had Crayon Kid made some small little play dough balls out of the same colors.  He then took chopsticks and practiced picking the play dough up and placing it in the matching colored section.  We even did the reverse once we filled each up.  Chopsticks are still super hard, for me too, so we modified his a bit with a rubber band at the end and placed a folded up piece of paper at the bottom to help make it easier to pinch.  He always has a blast using them! 

Next we kept the play dough out and used our magnetic letter to stamp out our name into the play dough.  He had to use his muscles to press really hard to flatted the play dough out and then press the letters firmly in. We spelled our name but you could spell anything you wanted - like weekly spelling words, right?

Rock Painting with a Side of Shapes and Letters! 

Crayon Kid loves going on walks.  And he loves finding rocks along his walk and bringing them home even more!  So one day after our rock hunt we came home and decided to paint the rocks.  It was a perfect day outside so we put the rocks in a box, everything was contained,  and he could paint them easily and there was no mess! After they dried we used them to create different shapes and letters, which is a super fun way to practice instead of drawing with plain old pencil and paper. 

So many fun learning activities were created from the most basic materials.  And each worked on multiple skills:

• literacy - making letters with the rocks and stamping our name in play dough
• math - shapes with the rocks
• fine motor - stamping, using the chopsticks, pressing the play dough, painting
• sensory - pressing and squeezing the play dough
• gross motor - going on the nature walk

I hope these activities inspire you to create at home.  It does not take a lot and anything can be made into a learning experience for you and your child.  

We would love to see pictures or hear about your experience trying any of our projects.  Feel free to comment or to message us on Facebook or Instagram.  Take care and till next time,

Nancy 

Co-Owner, Two Sparrows LS

Creator, Effortless Art Crayons

Check out our latest Wine'd Down video on Boy's Day!  You can read our full story below.

So last week we talked about Father’s Day and what we planned on doing to celebrate.  Funny story, a few weeks ago, we were talking to our son about celebrating Father’s Day, and he was really excited about it.  He asked if he got presents on Father’s Day, and we said no, it’s just for Fathers, to which he got upset about, because he assumed that Father’s Day was equivalent to “Boy’s Day.”  He was pretty broken up about it.

So, the good, nice father that my husband is, allowed our son to create a Boy’s Day for “ALL the boys in the world” (my son’s words) and we are going to celebrate it this weekend.  To be clear, in our book there should also be a Girl’s Day and Fur Baby Day, and a Nieces Day - you name it.  Boy’s Day is just what fits with our family.

We are really curious about what Boy’s Day is actually going to be about, so I asked our son about it today.  These are our son’s top five things that he wants to do on Boy’s day, in his own words.

1.  Play your little boy’s favorite game or play baseball if you want. You should treat them right.  Be nice to them or else you are a robber.  (At the end of this answer he said with a twinkle in his eye, “that is funny, right mom?”)

2.  Get Ice cream if it’s a hot day and if you are good you could go get a sucker at the sucker store.

3.  Get a slushie at Rita’s (local Erie location).

4.  You should eat cake…of course! Of course.

5.  You should go visit one of your friends or play baseball if it’s summer. Or play soccer. Or do soccer practice.  All these things will be fun, I promise.

Honestly, if mothers and fathers get a day, why shouldn’t there be a boy day, right?  Children have their own ideas and takes on the world that is completely fresh.  Sometimes I think that we should try to see more things from their point of view, instead of just “doing what we have always done.”  Who says it’s always the right way? 

We’d love to hear about your “boy day” if you choose to do it, or any other holiday that you may have made up along the way.  What else have you done differently or new based on what your children have suggested? We can’t be the only parents to do this…right? 

Till next time,

Nancy

Nancy is a former special education teacher and now assistant professor in a school of education.  She is wife to the other sparrow, Jason, and mother to a silly and sweet five-year-old boy.  Nancy is co-owner of Two Sparrows Learning Systems with her husband and inventor of Effortless Art Crayons.